Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
“Enough,” he said.
“Don’t you tell me enough. I’ll have enough when I’m damn well good and ready.” She drew her hand back and was about to slap him again, but he captured her wrist before she made contact.
“I get it, you’re pissed at me. I do. Trust me, you think I don’t feel it.”
“Do you even feel anything?” Lidia asked. “I should have known it. That you were playing some kind of game with my best friend. What was it, some kind of bet? Is that what you had planned?”
“It was no fucking game! I fucking love Aria. She is … everything.” He’d never been good with words. Grant was used to hurting people and messing shit up, not talking about his feelings.
“Wait, what?”
He let her go and took a step back. “I love her, okay? I love her so fucking much it hurts to see her this way. I hate that she thinks I don’t, that I … ugh. None of this was a game. Someone sent her a fucked-up video and yes, I was like that in the past, but not anymore. That was all lies. I lied a lot. I even hurt my brother’s woman because of it. Trust me, I do not feel and I have never felt that way.”
“Have you seen the video?” Lidia asked.
“Yes, have you?”
“No, Aria wouldn’t send it to me. You really do love her?”
“Yes, I love her. I want to spend the rest of my life with her and I’ve been hoping to get her pregnant so she won’t have a reason to fucking leave me.”
Lidia winced. “You do realize that it makes you sound like a bigger asshole, saying stuff like that?”
“Do I look like I give a fuck?” Grant asked. “I mess everything up. Don’t you see that? Bull’s the one that keeps everything together, while I’m the screw-up.”
“But you do love her?” Lidia asked.
“More than anything. Why do you keep asking the same fucking questions?” He was growing tired of this.
“Because it’s nice to hear and I know you mean it when you say it. You’re not lying. That’s good.”
He shook his head and pulled out Aria’s cell phone. The video’s on there as well as the number it was attached to. I don’t recognize it and I’ve made a callback. The phone is dead.”
“You expect me to know a number of someone who’s trying to hurt my best friend?”
“It’s a shot in the dark right now, but you’re the only one who is closest to Aria, apart from me. Her sister isn’t much good and after this, I’m not going to her.”
“You do know this is a long shot,” Lidia said.
Grant shrugged. “I’ve got other people I can use if you don’t know it.”
Lidia sighed and played the video. He heard his voice, once again.
Lidia winced. “Dude, you should have told her.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” He ran a hand down his face, finding himself getting more infuriated with every passing minute.
Lidia looked at the number and frowned. “Huh.”
She pulled out her own cell phone. He saw her thumb flashing across the screen.
“That stupid prick,” Lidia said.
“What?”
“It came from Sean’s old number. I don’t know why I didn’t delete it before!” She pressed and then he heard the call doing the same. “He sent this and then he’s gotten rid of his cell phone. Cowardly bastard. I should have known he was behind this. He tried to break up our friendship, saying all kinds of nasty stuff to Aria. When I see him, I’m going—”
“You’re not,” Grant said.
“Look here, Grant, you may wear that patch and think you’re the boss of the town, but you are going to realize that you’re not the boss of me.”
“There’s not going to be anything left for you to deal with. That piece of shit is mine,” Grant said.
Lidia smiled. “Can I come for the ride?”
“No. Keep talking to Aria. I’ll handle Sean.”
“You’re no fun.”
Grant shook his head and then made his way back around the veterinary practice. He knew where Sean lived. Climbing onto his bike, he pulled out of the veterinary practice parking lot and headed out to the Wood Farm where he’d find Sean.
Grant had been struggling to figure out where someone could have gotten that video. It was taken close to thirteen years ago. When he’d been in high school.
Sean had a brother, Nicholas. He had left town several years ago. The last Grant had heard, he settled down with a woman he met in the city, or something like that. It had been a fairy tale story, and he’d never come back to Carnage. Sean, the younger brother, must have found the old video, going through the footage.
Wood Farm had once been a thriving ranch, but as the years went by, the Woods had invested their money into real estate as well as stock markets. They were a wealthy family, and kept the Wood Farm house, but most of the land had been sold off for potential redevelopment, which had never happened.